


The Only Noise is the Receiver

by boltschick2612



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Chicago Blackhawks, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, New York Rangers, Past Relationship(s), buy out feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 11:09:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2386175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltschick2612/pseuds/boltschick2612
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The whispers turn to shouting, the shouting turns to tears, your tears turn into laughter, and it takes away our fears.</p><p>So you see, this world doesn't matter to me, I'll give up all I had just to breathe the same air as you till the day that I die, I can't take my eyes off of you</p><p>And I'm longing, for words to describe how I'm feeling. I'm feeling inspired. My world just flip turned upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Noise is the Receiver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueabsinthe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueabsinthe/gifts).



> Written for the prompt of 'the only noise is the receiver', which I believe was taken from the song 'A Twist in my Story' by Secondhand Serenade, and I took much of the inspiration for this story from the lyrics.
> 
> Takes place in Chicago, sometime during this past off season, after Brad's buy out by the New York Rangers.
> 
> Fiction is fiction.

The whole thing just feels wrong, and despite his every effort, Brad can't shake the feeling. Nothing about it feels right, and he knows it shouldn't be like this. His off-season should be spent golfing, or maybe driving out to the Hamptons, not standing in the middle of his living room, bewildered and wondering what to do next. All he can think to do is look around his small apartment, and try to let it sink in that this is his home now. The entire place feels so foreign to him, and he can't stop his mind from dwelling on the fact that his 'new home' is really nothing like the spacious apartment he had enjoyed in Manhattan. He has been in Chicago nearly a week, and he just can't bring himself to start the tedious and overwhelming process of unpacking, trying to find space for everything, and hoping that at the end of it all, this new and unfamiliar place would magically feel like home. It really feels to Brad as if his entire life is packed away into boring brown boxes.

He has tried telling himself that certainly, he should be used to it by now. He could almost make an artform out of moving, first from Tampa to Dallas, and finally to New York, where he had really thought he'd found a permanent home. He knows it's the nature of the business, and there's guys that had been moved around far more than he had, but possessing said knowledge does nothing to calm the nagging feeling in the pit of Brad's stomach. 

Tampa had been home for so long, and Dallas was a worthwhile layover, somewhere he could make a life while he decided what exactly he wanted to do with the rest of it. That decision had led him to New York, and perhaps the most comfortable place he had ever known. Sure, there's still lots to be said about Tampa, and the Cup it had given him, but the moments he had spent there were always seemed to be riding the thin line between joy and pain. Even now, Brad isn't exactly sure where on that line he would place all the restless hours he had spent wrapped up in Vincent's arms, or skating next to him on the ice. Sometimes, it all still feels like a waking dream that Brad keeps fighting to forget, despite the small part of him that doesn't want to. 

Perhaps that's why New York had been so different, so comfortable and safe. He really felt like he belonged, and that was a feeling he hadn't enjoyed since the day the head office in Tampa decided he was dispensible, and Vincent decided he was easily replaced by anyone willing to spend a few hours making him feel good. 

There had been times over the years, mostly during Brad's tenure with Dallas, when he and Vince would make a promise to see each other again, and easily fall back into the same routine. Too bad that routine was an endless cycle of heated reunions, tarnished at the end by an even more heated argument, the only parting vow being never to see each other again. The cycle was mind numbing and maddening, but in hindsight, it also serves to remind Brad of just one more way New York had been completely different. 

There were no maddening mind games with Hank, no uncerintity on where they stood. When he tries to think about it, Brad  realizes he can't even remember the exact moment it all started between them, or who made the first move. The little details get lost in a haze of memories, and it has always seemed to Brad that one second he was staring into Hank's intense blue eyes from across the locker room, and seemingly the next, he was being held firm against the cold metal of his parked car, with Hank's mouth covered his, stifling the low pitched moans that escaped him with every slow and fluid stroke of Hank's hand over his cock.

Out of the many times he had been with Hank since, it's always this first heated encounter that Brad remembers the most vividly. When he closes his eyes, and lets the scene play in his mind, he can almost feel the car door handle digging into his lower back, uncomfortable almost to the point of pain, not that he cared at the time. Brad can almost feel Hank's hand, holding a strong grip on his shoulder, and hear the sounds of Hank hurriedly fumbling with the zipper on his dress pants, a faint sound that was nearly drowned out by the roar of Hank's ragged breathing in his ear. If Brad had his way, he would have paused that moment in time, and lived in it forever, like some suspended dream.

The bad thing about dreams is that eventually,  every single one of them must end. Brad just didn't know this one would end so soon. He had planned on spending the next six years playing in New York, and more than likely, retiring there.  He loved the city, the team, and even more than that, he loved every second he spent with Hank. To learn that he would be bought out was a punch in the gut, and one that he still hasn't recovered from. It was different than being traded by inept management, and it was different than parting ways at the end of a contract. As recently as three years ago, he was thought worthy of a expensive nine year contract, and as recently as three months ago, worthy of a shot at the Captaincy. Then, suddenly, he wasn't fit to skate the ice at Madison Square in a Rangers sweater. 

After that, there weren't a lot of options. Brad wasn't ready to retire, and to him, the appeal of playing over seas was almost non existent. Finding a new team in the league always felt like the right answer, and proving that he still had something to contribute on the ice was just an added bonus. The choice of where to go, however, wasn't as easy. Sure, there were some places that called to him more than others, but no matter what, everything else just felt like a consolation prize when he thought about what he had in New York.

It really wasn't the idea of playing in Chicago that made him uneasy, after all, who wouldn't relish the chance to play on one of the best teams with some of the best players in the league? It was more the circumstances that lead him to have to find yet another team, and another place to call home. Once again, just like last time, and the time before that, Brad's life had been turned upside down. The only difference was, this time he had so much more to lose.

His thoughts are at best, a jumbled mess, and at worst, a chaotic tornado of words and faded memories. Brad is so wrapped up in them, that he almost doesn't hear the phone ring in his pocket. He snaps back to reality, and slowly fishes the phone from his pocket. Once the haze lifts from his brain, Brad remembers that he had asked Ryan to run a final check on his old apartment, making sure he hadn't left anything behind, and he answers the call with no expectation of it being anything other than Ryan checking in.

"Hello?"

It takes a few seconds for the smooth sounds of Hank's voice to register in Brad's mind. 

_"Morning, Bradley."_

"Hank?" Brad knows the shock must he evident in his voice, and he doesn't even have the frame of mind to try and hide it.

_"You were expecting someone else? Should I hang up?"_

Brad makes out the light chuckle in Hank's voice, but he also notices how tense, and strained his voice sounds. It feels off, and it almost makes him forget that Hank had said anything in the first place. 

"No!" Brad all but shouts this part, and it takes even him by surprise, but he let's his voice soften before continuing. "Please don't."

The stillness and tension hangs in the air, and permeates the white noise filtering over the line. He can almost feel Hank's hesitation, like a thick blanket wrapping around him. There's so many things he wants to say, or ask, but he can't bring himself to break the silence with questions he might not want to know the answer to. The stillness seems to drag on for eternity, and the longer it goes on, the more Brad is sure that he couldn't speak even if he wanted to, and that the tense silence on Hank's end could only mean he's having a hard a time with all of this as Brad is. Brad simply counts the seconds, waiting for Hank to break the silence.

"Please just break the silence," Brad thinks to himself.

"Say something, Hank," Brad finally says in a shaky, almost timid voice.

 _"What?"_ Hank stammers, almost as if those words were the last he expected from Brad.

"Just please say something."

As Brad hears Hank let out a shaky sigh, his heart races, and his thought start to race. 

_"I don't know if this is gonna work, Bradley."_

The words hit Brad's ears, but it's almost like his brain refuses to accept them. Surely Hank must have meant something else, or maybe he just heard him wrong. There's no way Hank is choosing to end things between them.

"That's not what I wanted to hear," Brad says dryly.

_"That's really not what I wanted to say..."_

"So don't say it. We can pretend you never did."

_"We're not naive eighteen year olds, Bradley. We can't pretend like being eight hundred miles away from each other is no big deal."_

Hank's voice is filled with an anger that Brad chooses to ignore. He knows Hank, and he knows that the anger isn't directed at anyone but himself.

"It's more like seven hundred," Brad says through an awkward laugh, one full of tense energy.

_"Bradley, be serious."_

 "I am," Brad starts, "I've already lost everything, Hank, and more than once. I can't lose you too."

Another loud, defeated sigh escapes Hank, and roars over the line.

_"You think I want to be doing this? You think I want to be walking around your empty apartment, desperately searching through drawers and cabinets for something, anything, you might have left behind?"_

"You're...what? Why?"

_"Because if there's some piece of you here, you're not really gone."_

"You should check the kitchen, then."

In his head, Brad slowly counts off the seconds, waiting for the sounds of Hank on the other end of the line. His eyes slide closed, and he listens carefully to the small sounds filtering over the phone. It's almost like he can see Hank as he stands in the middle of his stark and abandoned kitchen, shifting his gaze until he finds whatever it was that Brad had sent him there to find. There's a sharp intake of breath over the line, and Brad isn't entirely sure if he's imagining it, or if Hank had finally found the envelope he had left, taped to the fridge, and decorated with nothing but Hank's name scrawled across the front.

He hears the faint sound of paper tearing, and he knows this time he's not imagining it. He can only imagine Hank is holding the phone wedged  between his shoulder and ear as he carefully opens the envelope. He can hear Hank's breathing, and this time, the silence between them has lost every ounce of tension it held before.

Brad doesn't say anything right away, instead, he allows Hank a few silent seconds to mull over the  Polaroid picture he had placed in the envelope, and left behind. He even smiles as he recalls the rainy and cold afternoon he went rummaging in Hank's closet for an extra blanket, since Hank had been so keen on hogging the one they had on the bed, and instead found an old Polaroid camera hiding in the back. He had managed to sneak back into bed, and under the covers, next to Hank, without waking him up. He then inched closer to Hank's sleeping form, and carefully draped one arm around Hank's shoulders before holding the camera up at arm's length above them, and snapping the picture. The loud click and whir of the camera jolted Hank awake, but he was far too tired at the time to say anything about Brad's impromptu photo session, and he was back asleep before the photo had even finished developing. It might have been for the better, because Brad is absolutely convinced that if Hank ever saw how he looked in the moment that Brad decided to immortalize, with his messed hair, and dark rimmed eyes, he would have ordered the picture be destroyed immediately. 

Hank's voice warms almost immediately, a stark contrast to the way his voice had sounded before. _"You really should have kept it, you could use it as black mail."_

"I left it for you. Well, I left it for Mac to give to you, after he did one last check on the place."

Brad knows what Hank must he thinking as soon as the words leave his mouth, and the shallow intake of breath he hears from Hank's end of the line proves him right.

"Don't worry, I told him not to open it," Brad says before Hank can so much as get a word in.

_"Because Mac is so good at listening to instructions?"_

"You believe everything Steps says?"

_"It's yours, but I'll hold onto it."_

 "Until next time?"

  _"Until next time."_

Brad can't bring himself to speak, and the word 'goodbye' seems stuck in his throat, along with every other word he can't bring himself to say. He disconnects the call, sucks in a shaky breath, and lets it out in a hard exhale. For the first time in what felt like forever, there were no empty apartments, or boring brown boxes. 

There was only the promise of 'next time.'

**Author's Note:**

> If you so desire, please follow me on [Tumblr ](boltschick2612.tumblr.com)


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